Stoli Group declared bankruptcy after ransomware attack

The Stoli Group's US companies filed for bankruptcy following a ransomware attack in August, with Russian authorities seizing the company's remaining distilleries in the country.

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According to Chris Caldwell, President and Global CEO of Stoli USA and Kentucky Owl, the two subsidiaries of Stoli Group, this decision comes after the August ransomware attack, which caused a severe disruption to its IT systems, including its enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform.

The cyberattack also forced manual operations across the group, affecting key processes such as accounting, with full recovery not expected until early 2025. Caldwell added that the incident also prevented Stoli's US subsidiaries from providing financial reports to lenders, who claimed the two companies had defaulted on $78 million in debt.

A month earlier, in July 2024, two distilleries worth $100 million, the group's last assets in Russia, were also seized following the designation of Stoli founder Yuri Shefleras an "extremist."

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This designation was related to humanitarian aid efforts and marketing campaigns in support of Ukrainian refugeesduring the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Stoli Group has also spent tens of millions of dollars as part of a long-running legal dispute spanning more than 23 years and across multiple jurisdictions, including the United States , with Russian state-owned enterprise FKP Sojuzplodoimport , for rights to the Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya vodka brands .

This legal battle stemmed from an executive decree by President Vladimir Putin in March 2000 to “restore and protect the state’s rights” to vodka brands whose rights were purchased from private companies in the 1990s.

Shefler, the company's founder, was also forced to flee Russia in 2002 due to political and "fabricated" charges related to his criticism of Putin's regime. Shefler later received asylum in Switzerland and UK citizenship after extradition requests to Russia were rejected in the 2010s.

Ransomware attacks, such as the one at Stoli Group, pose a serious threat to data and system security. In a ransomware attack, malicious software enters your computer or network and encrypts your data, decrypting it only if you pay a ransom. Ransomware attacks can have devastating consequences for individuals and businesses. Data loss and system disruption can cause serious financial damage and jeopardize your business.

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To protect yourself from ransomware attacks, it is important to follow security best practices, such as installing up-to-date antivirus, browsing the internet carefully and informed, and avoiding open downloading of unprotected files. It is also important to keep backups of your data in secure locations so that you can recover your data in the event of an attack.

Source: bleepingcomputer